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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25010497">born for society</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snickfic/pseuds/Snickfic'>Snickfic</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain Marvel (2019), Thor (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>5 Times, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Worldbuilding</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:35:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,711</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25010497</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snickfic/pseuds/Snickfic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The best thing about Loki as far as Minn-Erva is concerned is he hates people as much as she does. His shoulders are a close second.</p><p>(Or, three times Minn-Erva encounters Loki by accident, and one time she finds him on purpose.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Loki/Minn-Erva</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Little Black Dress Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>born for society</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucymonster/gifts">lucymonster</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The term abroad on Xandar was a mistake. The studies were full of liberationist nonsense, the physical exams were a joke, but this was the sharpest disappointment of all: the parties were a fucking drag. Light shows and non-alcoholic punch and big floating bubbles, what the hell? Minn-Erva nursed her shitty beer—flatter by the moment, and by now unpleasantly warm—and loathed everyone in the room. She should have stayed in her dorm room. She could have caught up on <i>The Center of the Galaxy</i>. At least Xandar had soaps.</p><p>She’d been alone against the giant back window just a moment ago, but now, without her quite seeing how it happened, there was a guy. He was tall, pale, with dark hair tied back at the nape of his neck. Keen eyes, good posture. On Hala, those together usually meant exactly one thing.  “What’s the occasion?” he asked, tipping his chin towards the crowd.</p><p>Minn-Erva knew what her mother would have said about her letting someone surprise her, even if he was a warrior, which she was pretty sure of. Not Xandarian, because their average military grunt had all the poise of a hired security guard. She took a pull of her beer and then regretted it. Eugh. “Beats the shit out of me. Some alumni visit.” Some royal. Who the hell had royals anymore? She scraped her memory for the name. “Thor?”</p><p>The guy got a look on his face like he’d swigged some shitty beer himself. He peered over the bobbing heads of the people nearest them. “I believe someone’s swimming in the punch fountain,” he observed.</p><p>“Sounds about right.”</p><p>They watched a very tall Xandarian with even taller hair amble past. One of the bubbles drifted low enough to snag on one of the guy’s metal-tipped hair spikes. It burst. The next moment, Minn-Erva breathed in the unmistakable sickley-sweetness of a color high. Everything around her suddenly looked a little purple, with flashes of yellow.</p><p>“This is extraordinarily tedious,” the guy said, and cast her a speculative look that had meant the same thing on every one of the twelve planets Minn-Erva had visited so far.</p><p>He had good shoulders. Sure, what the hell. “My roommate’s out for the night,” Minn-Erva said, optimistically. Another thing about Xandar: she had a <i>roommate</i>. Ugh.</p><p>But there was no sign of Shireel when Minn-Erva got there with the guy—“Loki,” he’d said and then waited expectantly, like that was supposed to mean something to her—so at least that one small thing was in Minn-Erva’s favor. And this was another: that Loki liked kissing all right, but he liked it better with teeth, and he liked her fingers winding through his hair a little too tightly. It was kind of fun, especially when she was straddling his lap but not quite in it, teasing herself against his cock and teasing him, too, while she was at it. “Fucking get on with it,” he said, jaw clenched, without making one single move to make it so. Ready to fuck on her whim. Yeah, that was pretty okay.</p><p>It wasn’t <i>great</i>, don’t get her wrong—she doubted he’d ever touched a Kree woman’s bulb before—but it was a better time than the party, even if he conked the hell out in her bed immediately after he came. Rather than try and wake him, she brought <i>The Center of the Galaxy</i> up on the holo. </p><p>She was into the third episode of her backlog when Loki shoved up onto his elbow and announced, “I believe that green woman is cheating on her wife with the tree person.” He ended up watching two more episodes with her before he showed himself out.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>--</p>
</div>“He’ll go on for hours yet,” came a male whisper in Minn-Erva’s ear. Minn-Erva didn’t react. Casually she searched the Asgardian palace’s massive feast hall and found her suspect across the table and five seats down, inspecting his plate with deliberate care. It was the prince, the sorcerer: Loki. And hadn’t <i>that</i> been a surprise when she’d read the dossier.<p>That dossier had strong instructions about avoiding contact with royals. The diplomatic efforts were Yon-Rogg’s lookout; Minn-Erva and the rest of Starforce were just for appearances and a steady trigger finger, if it somehow came to that. Minn-Erva cocked an ear towards the king—yep, sounded like he was just warming up—and said softly, “Does your transmission go both ways?”</p><p>The corners of Loki’s mouth twitched on what might have a smile. “Close enough,” said the voice, though his lips didn’t move. Nice trick. Too bad Minn-Erva didn’t have it. Korath-Thak was already fixing her with a glare. </p><p>“So who the fuck are these people?” she whispered. </p><p>She didn’t give a shit about the answers. Professionally, chances were the empire wouldn’t have contact with Asgard again for another two hundred years. Personally, she wanted to get off this weird, backwards, self-important planetoid as soon as physically possible. But Loki in her ear was a hell of a lot more entertaining that Odin droning on about—cultural exchange? As if Asgard had noticed any culture except its own in the last five millennia.</p><p>“I do wonder why you’re here,” Loki mused eventually, like she was going to blurt out national secrets in the middle of the feast hall. Minn-Erva lifted an eyebrow in his direction. His smirk grew, though he’d yet to actually look her in the eye, so instead he just looked like he was taking a certain vindictive pleasure in the demise of the contents of his plate. “Perhaps you’d be willing to enlighten me in another venue. My rooms, perhaps.” Minn-Erva rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to Odin.</p><p>Minn-Erva was still awake that night in her darkened guest quarters when Loki slipped inside, limined faintly in green. He offered her a gallant hand and, by means of some of that Asgardian mumbo-jumbo that she was maybe a little impressed by, he slipped her out of them again. However it was he did it, it left her with some vertigo; she discreetly gripped a piece of furniture as she looked around his quarters. They were much larger and grander—golden and warm and full of splendor. Figured. “I’m not telling you shit,” Minn-Erva said. </p><p>“Perhaps you’ll reconsider later,” Loki purred.</p><p>Minn-Erva looked him up and down. He’d shed the ceremonial leathers and was wearing a linen shirt and trousers, comfortably fitted, loose but still showing evidence of that wiry muscle tone she remembered. Also the shoulders. She raised an eyebrow and said, “Give it your best shot.”</p><p>His best shot was better than she remembered. He knew his way around her bulb now, at least. </p><p>“My commander’s telling the truth,” she told him afterwards, when he started to pull himself out of his post-fuck doze. Out like a fucking light, seriously. “We’re looking for a traitor on C—on Midgard. I wanted to just go grab her, but apparently you Asgardians have a protection racket on the place, and my commander’s a stickler.”</p><p>“I wonder,” he said, stroking her hair, but he didn’t ask her any more questions, either that night or the four that followed. He did figure out how to lick around her sensitive spots until she whited out, in between complaining about his father, his brother, his brother’s friends, Asgard in general, and Yon-Rogg. Decent intel, and Minn-Erva didn’t have to talk to any of the other locals to get it.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>--</p>
</div>Of all the bars in all the universe, Loki wandered into the same miserable Contraxian dive that Minn-Erva was already holed up in. For a moment she was sure she was mistaken; no way that was Loki standing in the doorway, limned by the snowy outdoors. Then the figure stepped inside, closed the door on that blinding brightness, and removed all doubt. Minn-Erva lifted her tumbler of dubious Contraxian paint thinner to her lips, half for comfort and half for camouflage, as though anyone who was looking could miss the blue bitch in the corner.<p>Loki didn’t. His eyes widened just a fraction as his gaze caught on her, and then he turned to the barkeep. Eventually he did find his way over to her booth, though, and she was still in it, which suggested maybe she wanted to be found. “A pleasant surprise,” he said, slipping in across from her.</p><p>“If you say so.”</p><p>He looked her over, no doubt seeing the functional yet shabby body armor, the equally well-used laser rifle propped in the corner, both unmarked. “I heard about your empire’s—political unrest.”</p><p>“Don’t fucking tell me you’re sorry. Your people back home must be overjoyed by our little civil war.” Fuck Vers. Fuck her, fuck her, fuck her, and fuck the shambles of an empire she left behind, the one that eventually decided Minn-Erva was bad for public relations, like she hadn’t given her whole life to it. “What the fuck are you even doing here? Is Thor slumming it around here somewhere, too?” </p><p>Loki got that sour look that inevitably followed any mention of his brother. Yeah, Minn-Erva had found that oh-so-sensitive nerve during the Asgard visit. It felt like decades ago. “Are you?” he asked.</p><p>Minn-Erva snorted. “You know better than that. This is where I belong now. I’m <i>embarrassing</i>.” None of the friends who’d survived the political winds even took her messages anymore. </p><p>“Self-pity doesn’t become you.”</p><p>“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Minn-Erva said. “<i>You’re</i> going to lecture me on self-pity? You?” He scowled harder, a storm clearly brewing, never mind that his brother was supposed to the one with a mystical connection to the weather. Minn-Erva abruptly lost patience with him and herself, too. “Look, are you coming up to my room or not?”</p><p>After a pause, he inclined his head.</p><p>He didn’t say a word about her décor—stained but clean, if it cost her twice as much to get it that way—or about the bed, which just barely fit the two of them. He fucked her like she asked him to, hard, until tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. Afterwards he was a warm, sweaty body dozing at her back, his arm draped over her waist. She dozed, too, and woke when he began to stir. He didn’t try to get up, only lay there with his hand on her belly and his weirdly cool breath on the back of her neck, and maybe that was what she wanted, it turned out. </p><p>“I could—” he began.</p><p>“No. I’m not taking handouts from fucking Asgard. I’ll figure this shit out. But thanks,” she added, without planning to.</p><p>His arm tightened around her waist. “You’re welcome.” And then he didn’t say another word, which was itself some kind of natural wonder.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>--</p>
</div>The rumor was confused, unclear in the details, but absolute in its conclusion: Loki of Asgard was dead. Minn-Erva settled down with a glass of whiskey that night and took an angry swig of it in his honor. Fucking Asgardians were supposed to be fucking immortal.<p>The next rumor came a couple of years later: Loki of Asgard was dead. Again? Well, the details weren’t any clearer or less confused, so who could say. Minn-Erva toasted him anyway.</p><p>The winds changed again on Hala. She was a hero of a prior age now. That was nice. She threatened to shoot the first two couriers that came with job offers from the new regime. The third offer came while she was nursing some broken ribs, her arm in a sling. She took it.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>--</p>
</div>Minn-Erva maybe kept an ear out once the first garbled reports of Asgard’s destruction came through on the news feeds. She maybe plotted the likely trajectory of the sole vessel to escape the planetoid’s wreckage, and she maybe got herself stationed on the likeliest trading outpost between C-148, which the Asgardians called Vanaheim, and C-53. So she was there when Loki walked down the gangplank, back ramrod-straight like it was all that kept him from falling over. She hung back in a corner—the local Kree representative didn’t need to greet new arrivals on the station, but she didn’t need to be anywhere else in particular, either, so here would do—and watched him scope the place out.<p>His eyes landed on her eventually. He stared for a moment, and then the station master’s lackey arrived to ask the Asgardians’ business, and Loki was occupied after that. In a little while, other people joined him. Some Minn-Erva thought she remembered seeing from a distance, decades ago; others were wholly unfamiliar. Minn-Erva listened long enough to be sure they’d be staying a few days, and then she slipped away.</p><p>Her day turned busy when some idiot loosed a crate of toxic fungus rats inside a freighter. This was not Minn-Erva’s problem, strictly speaking, but the Kree presence was tolerated less grudgingly if Minn-Erva pitched in on occasion, and the worst a fungus rat’s spores could do to a Kree was make them sleepy. Sleepy and covered in orange dust. She got to the station canteen late, showered and rested and with the beginning of a spore-induced headache, and found Loki there.</p><p>He looked up from his tablet as she approached. His tray was at his elbow—set aside awhile ago, if Minn-Erva was any judge. Waiting for her. “Minn-Erva. You’re looking well.” He nodded toward the Kree colors of her uniform. </p><p>Nice of him not to point out the scattered gray hairs she was either too lazy or too stubborn to dye. She hadn’t decided which yet. “You too, considering I heard you were dead.” He was looking weathered, though. Probably all the dying did that to a person.</p><p>The corner of Loki’s mouth twitched. “A less permanent condition than some would have you believe.” </p><p>“I’m sorry,” Minn-Erva said. “About your planet.”</p><p>Loki looked down at his hands, and without his sharp eyes brightening his face, the weariness was even more evident. His shoulders slumped. “Yes.”</p><p>She’d meant to get herself something hot from the canteen before the last counter closed. Instead she said, “You want to go back to my place?”</p><p>He took a deep breath. “All right.”</p><p>They fucked slow. Loki clearly didn’t have either the energy or the heart for anything more. It took a while for him to kindle to life under her touch, his lower lip between her teeth like he’d always liked. He came with his gaze fixed on hers, wide and grief-stricken and hungry.</p><p>He slept afterward, a real sleep, heavy and deep. Minn-Erva ate one of the instant meals from her shelf and logged the fungus rat incident in her daily report. When Loki struggled upright at last, she tossed a nutrient bar onto the bed next to him, and then a water globe after that. He ate the bar like his last meal had been a day ago or more, instead of the few hours since the canteen. Some of the other Asgardians had looked a little underfed, too, she thought.</p><p>“Thank you,” he said at last, carefully putting the empty water globe aside.</p><p>“Yeah,” she said. “So. Earth, huh?”</p><p>“Thor seems to think so,” Loki said, looking mildly disgusted by this optimism. “<i>I</i> think Earth is a terrible idea.”</p><p>“It’s a dump.”</p><p>He hummed in glum agreement.</p><p>She’d planned this, sort of. She’d gotten as far as putting herself here on the station and then forgotten to plan any further. For example: what to say to Loki after she found him. She shifted over on the bed, until they were sitting knee to knee, thighs inches apart. She took his hand in hers. His fingers were still long and fine, but the ugly, half-healed wound across the back of his hand was new. Some kind of glue held it together; it tingled when she brushed against it. Unexpectedly, what she said was, “You know, I’ve never met any of your people. I think Thor maybe bowed to me once.”</p><p>Loki considered that for a while. “Would you like to?”</p><p>Definitely not. What did she have to say to a bunch of grieving war refugees? She brushed her thumb over Loki’s knuckles and said, “Sure, what the hell.”</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>END</p>
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